I thought I would share a brief piece I wrote that exaggerates several of the most common mistakes grantwriters make. This mini-case statement is riddled with over-the-top phrases and statements (in bold) that I hope point out some obvious problems. See what you think and feel free to leave a comment!
Here goes…
Our organization started five years ago because we wanted to improve the dismal quality of life and alleviate economic inequality for other women in our community. These problems do not actually affect our lives, but we wanted to appear charitable.
We propose the “Get A Life Project,” which will have a tiny effect on housing conditions for low-income women and will probably do nothing to change their economic status. We don’t have an innovative bone in our bodies, so we’re just doing the same old project that we’ve always done. Actually, there’s no urgency to the project, and it’s not part of any larger plan. In fact, we think there are already several more proficient organizations doing this work in our town.
We think that our Get A Life Project will provide much-needed assistance, but we’re not so sure about the exact outcome. Although no low-income women have asked us to help them, or have joined our organization, we think the project is a great idea. It’s not clear how we will do this work, but we are sure that we’ll come up with something. We will have to figure out how to serve people in unfamiliar languages, but we don’t think you want to know any details of how we actually will implement the project, and we definitely will not be evaluating it.
Our project does not address any of your Foundation’s priority areas, but we believe you will make an exception for us because of our good intentions. We will have to indefinitely rely on your foundation to sustain our work. We’re pretty desperate so if you don’t fund us we will have to close our doors.
[Dalya’s Note: This guest post was written by Naomi Shaw. She is a freelance writer and can be found at naomijshaw.jux.com.]
